James Henry Breasted Prize from the American Historical Association for the best book in English on any field of history prior to the year 1000 CE

Research Abstract

Matthew P. Canepa is Professor of Art History and Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Presidential Chair in Art History and Archaeology of Ancient Iran at University of California, Irvine. An historian of art, archaeology and religions his research focuses on the intersection of art, ritual and power in the eastern Mediterranean, Persia and the wider Iranian world. Professor Canepa’s research interests center on the co-constituency of the built, ritual, and natural environments in creating and sustaining cultural memory, power, and identity. His most recent book is entitled The Iranian Expanse: Transforming Royal Identity through Landscape, Architecture, and the Built Environment 550 BCE – 642 CE (University of California Press, 2018). It is a large-scale study of the transformation of Iranian cosmologies, landscapes and architecture from the height of the Achaemenids to the coming of Islam. is publications include The Two Eyes of the Earth: Art and Ritual of Kingship between Rome and Sasanian Iran (University of California Press, 2009; paperback ed. 2017), the first book to analyze the artistic, ritual and ideological interactions between the late Roman and Sasanian empires in a comprehensive and theoretically rigorous manner. His recent work focuses on the impact of Iranian visual and spatial cultures on Eurasia.

Publications

The Iranian Expanse: Transforming Royal Identity through Landscape, Architecture, and the Built Environment (550 BCE – 642 CE). University of California Press, 2018.

The Two Eyes of the Earth: Art and Ritual of Kingship between Rome and Sasanian Iran. University of California Press, 2009; paperback ed. 2017.

Theorizing Cross-Cultural Interaction among the Ancient and Early Medieval Mediterranean, Near East and Asia. Ars Orientalis 38. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian, 2010.